Tag Archives: integration

Chuck’s Place: Relativity Of Mind

An integrated mind is a mind at peace…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

We might ask ourselves: “Who am I?”

The answer? It depends.

We are of two minds. One of those minds has an identity, an ego, that thinks, feels and knows who it is. The other mind is the subconscious, a far vaster mind that has access to all knowledge and has the potential to become anyone and anything. The subconscious mind has no ego or fixed identity. The subconscious simply becomes what is suggested to it.

When the ego thinks, the subconscious takes the suggestion of that thought and creates it in the physical body. The subconscious does not discriminate fact from fiction. If the ego imagines a frightful possibility, the subconscious treats it as real and armors the body to tense and prepare for clear and present danger.

The subconscious is the older of the two minds. It stores the evolutionary history of the body for its duration in physical life, as well as the historical journey of the soul that inhabits that body. Consequently, the subconscious lacks a specific identity, as its roots stretch way deeper than its current incarnation.

Without locking into any personality the subconscious reacts automatically and instinctively, in a way that has best served the survival of the species. Thus, it reacts to situations based on the suggestions of survival programs that automatically present themselves via association with a current challenge.

However, the subconscious is highly influenced by suggestions from many sources. The ego, or actual personality, exerts a powerful influence through its thoughts, beliefs and imagination. The ego thinks and reflects, which the subconscious does not do, and the subconscious manifests these dramas. Many a psychosomatic symptom or illness is directly the creative manifestation of a suggestion to the subconscious through conscious rumination.

The subconscious is also highly impacted by the free flow of thoughts in the universe, or by the points of view we expose ourselves to in news shows and social media. Political campaigns are judged by the size of one’s financial war chest, which is ultimately spent on suggestions to the subconscious mind’s of voters as to what they should believe and vote for.

Additionally, the subconscious is influenced by our divided selves. Beside our conscious identity are many parts of ourselves that live below the threshold of consciousness, in the region of the psyche that Jung called the shadow. These sub-personalities have minds of their own that constantly offer the subconscious suggestions that immediately register in the body.

I utilize a simple neurofeedback device that registers immediately a changed brainwave state should a background doubt whisper during a meditation session. The subtlety of sensitivity by the subconscious to become what is hinted at is extraordinary.

One does well to bring consciousness to these shadow ideas, that they reach levels of resolution to not unseat one’s conscious intent. This is the path of individuation where one enlarges one’s personality by truly reconciling the oppositions within the self.

Suggestions from such an integrated personality promote health, creativity and fulfillment where that which is within truly reflects that which is without. Such a mind finds duration beyond the relativity of time and space.

Beyond relativity,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: A Tale Of Power And Stupidity

Fool on the hill…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

I stood on a steep embankment below a massive felled tree that had been cut into large rounds, ready to be split into firewood. I’d carefully been rolling down one heavy round at a time to a more level spot where I could split the wood. Three large rounds were pressed together at the top of the hill. I reached up, placing my hands on them, and started to rock them. They rocked as a group.

I got excited at their stored energy coming to life and the prospect of rolling the three together, as a unit. A voice inside said, “that’s a bad idea.” Too late. I rocked them and they started to roll toward my head at full force. Somehow I leaped out of the way as they picked up momentum. One crashed into a tree and stopped. The other two speedily descended hundreds of feet to the stream at the bottom of the mountain.

Truthfully, I have not been able to fully recapitulate how I got away. My ego consciousness was instantly supplanted by a more seasoned High Self that took command of my body and applied instinctive knowhow to jump out of the way and survive.

Trauma shifts one into a state of heightened awareness, which records one’s non-ordinary experience and where one is introduced to knowledge and abilities that defy the ego’s rational sensibilities. Oftentimes people have an out-of-body experience during a traumatic situation, as the High Self shields the vulnerable ego from an experience it is ill-prepared to take in.

Four indigenous children were rescued this past week, having survived for forty days in the Amazon jungle after their plane crashed, killing their indigenous leader and their mother four days later. Forty days is the archetypal eon for meeting a great spiritual challenge. In the heightened awareness of their trauma they were surely guided and protected by the spirits of their mother and leader, steadfastly present with them until they were rescued.

Master shamans teach their students in states of heightened awareness. The task of the student is to fully retrieve a memory of an experience, at the level of ego consciousness, in order to be ready and worthy of the knowledge being recapitulated. The same is true in trauma work. When the victim is ready they will become enlightened to the fullness of their previously dissociated experience. That’s when we fully learn our greatest lessons.

It would be convenient and partially true for me to identify an ego inflation, or influence from a parasitic entity, to explain my decision to rock and roll. However, the truth is that I quite knowingly signed up to have that experience. I fully own my impulsive decision.

What wants to be communicated here is that we are both good and evil, devil and angel. To truly become our whole self, we must own and reconcile with all the oppositions within the self. “Resist ye not evil,” said a great Master.

That evil within flirts with adventure, sometimes high stakes adventure. If we never take a risk we’ll be safe, but we’re sure to be saddled with regret. If we don’t approach, we won’t be rejected, but we’ll surely be alone. Everyone is told to be good, but truthfully, good can also be boring.

The human shadow is largely composed of characters and attitudes that compensate for our whitewashed conscious attitudes. So, for instance, if we are shown a highly desirous character in dreaming that we cannot consciously identify with, that character is most likely balancing out a rigid, morally bound, conscious definition of self.

It’s not so much that we secretly are that exaggerated character, but a part of us, that is more honest with the fullness of who we are, resorts to this persona to demonstrate to the ego the depths of its one-sidedness.

Reconciliation of this opposition would be the ego accepting the truth of its fuller self and its fear of living it. This acceptance of the shadow invites the shadow, with all its desirous energies, into a greater partnership with the ego and opportunities to find ways in life to live its fullness. Wholeness is truly a reconciliation with, and inclusion of, all the opposites that we are.

I’m quite certain my crazy stunt with the heavy tree rounds was not a hidden dance with death. Though, at the same time, every moment of our lives might be our inevitable appointment with death. For shamans, keeping this knowing in the forefront of consciousness gives living its fullest realization.

My tale of power and stupidity insisted on being shared to demonstrate that we are all devils and angels. Finding the right balance and creating a working relationship with these component selves is the key to refined, integrated wholeness, and spiritual advancement.

Time to chop some wood, and I promise to be careful,
Chuck

Soulbyte for Friday February 10, 2023

-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Continue your search for meaning, balance and purpose. Stay attached to the idea that you are a continuously evolving being and that everything in your life is leading you to clarity, to knowing, and to the unity of self that is the ultimate goal of all. Unity of self is the integration and balance of all that you are. Some days you are there and you know the feel of it, on others not so much. But knowing what it feels like helps you to know what you seek. Keep that feeling in mind and know that it is possible again, or even for the first time. Everything is possible.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Wednesday February 8, 2023

-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Find your way to a new kind of balance that allows for the integration of all that you are—mind, body, spirit—that encompasses your dreams and desires in a way that is nurturing and sustaining rather than in old ways that may be depleting and draining. To overdo anything sets your balance out of whack. Remember this as you make choices and go about your daily routine. Perhaps the best approach is to be open and expectant each day, looking always for the opening that will offer the good change that you seek, a doorway to something new.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Monday January 30, 2023

-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Look to your dreams to guide you and show you what you are not seeing in the light of day. For in the light there may be less clarity on what lurks within. But at night the darkness is no problem, for the clarity of dreams is assured should you wish to probe them. Learn the language of dreams at night so that you may bring them into your day and utilize them to your advantage, for there is much to learn in bridging the two worlds just as there is much to learn in integrating the conscious and unconscious parts of the self. Mysterious as dreams may seem, you yourself are even more mysterious, for how you truly operate, and why, is a great mystery and surely one to be explored.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

How to create a shortcut to Riverwalker Press: If you have an iPhone and would like quick access to our Soulbytes and blogs you can create an icon that goes directly to the home screen on your iPhone. It will appear on your home screen just as any other App icon you download. So, rather than having to search for Riverwalker in the Safari browser every time you want to read our offerings you simply tap the icon and it will take you directly to our website.

Thanks for reading and we hope you are enjoying our offerings!

Here are instructions on how to do this:

Add a website icon to your Home Screen